Heat of the moment
by Jeanne Maeker
Summary: John, Dean (20) and Sam (16) take on a simple wendigo hunt but when the brothers are separated from their father, things aren't so simple after all... and the upcoming storm is just going to make things worse. Limp/hurt/Sam hurt/protective/Dean worried/John death!fic (kinda) The second chapter will be released in two weeks when I get back from the USA
1. Prologue : World on fire

_Full Summary :_ _John, Sam (16) and Dean (20) Winchester take on an easy wendigo hunt, but when the brothers are separated from their father, things turned out to be a lot less simple. Dean has to take care of a seriously injured Sam while looking for his father and the wendigo. Will the boys make it out alive of the woods or will Sam take a turn for the worst ? Hurt!Sam Hurt!Protective!Awesome!Dean Worried!Awesone!John_

 _Prologue :_

He could feel the heat coming from everywhere around him as he ran for his life. His arm wrap around his barely conscious brother's waist, he started doubting they would make it out of these damn woods alive.

"Come on Sammy, you need to work with me here." he said giving all the strength he had left to keep his baby brother up and moving. He felt a small nod brushing against his shoulder, that was all Dean needed, to know that Sam understood him. They took a few more steps before a loud groan escaped from the younger winchester's lips. Dean shot a worried glance to his brother. Sam was as pale as a ghost, sweat was covering the major part of his face and his hair once clean and shinning was now sweaty and dirty. Dean noticed that his brother's eyelids were almost closed.

"Hey, Sammy ! No sleeping remember ?"

"Bu' 'm tired De' " he said between two ragged breaths

"I know Sam, but we have to get back to the Impala and find dad so we can get you help."

"Dad's not with us ?" Sam questioned with a worried look in his eyes

"No Sammy, you know that, don't you ? We got separated at the beginning of the hunt."

Sam didn't seem to remember at first but Dean could tell he was trying hard.

"Oh yea' right... The bridg'" The younger winchester said in a sleepy voice

"That's right, that's why I need you to stay awake and keep walking." Dean nearly begged his brother. He tighten his hold around Sam and kept up the pace.

The flames were closing around them and their last way out of this burning trap was narrowing too fast. With a last boost of energy the brothers started running towards the exit. Two minutes later, they reached their goal but only one person could fit in the small breach between the walls of flames.

"Ok Sam, I need you to listen very carefully." Dean ordered his brother. Sam opened his eyes as much as he could and looked at his brother.

"I'm gonna go first so I can help you from the other side, do you understand ?" A small "Yea'" escaped from Sam's lips.

"Good, now stay here and wait for me to call you, and don't you dare fall asleep on me Samantha !" Dean said with a small grin on his face.

"J'rk"

"Bitch" the older brother said before letting go of his hold on Sam.

Suddenly, Sam realised how much of his weight Dean was actually carrying. It was beginning to be harder for him to catch his breath and he felt his knees shaking as he tried his best to stay standing. He watched Dean run in the tiny space that was not yet on fire. He saw the flames brushing slightly against his leather jacket as he heard his brother curse between his teeth. A few seconds later, Dean disappeared behind the burning trees. Sam waited two agonizing minutes wondering if his brother was alive, trying to decide whether or not he should join him on the other side, when he finally heard it : a fainted yell from the other side.

"It's okay Sam ! You can cross now !"

Sam managed to see his brother in between the flames reaching for his hand. The younger brother stared walking towards his brother hand. He was halfway from Dean when his foot got stuck in a root. He tripped and fell face first on the dirty ground. His head connected with a rock and his vision blurred, white spots dancing in his vision. The last thing he registered was his brother crying out his name as he watched the fire climb all around him, trapping him like an animal, and then everything went black.


	2. Chapter 1 : The bridge

_Author's note: Hi guys ! So I'm going to spend two weeks in the USA so I won't be able to post during these two weeks, so I figured I could release the first chapter before I leave better than when I come back. So there it is ! Again, please don't judge my grammar and writing too harshly I'm very new at this :) Enjoy Your Reading !_

 _Chapter 1 :_

"Dean, wake up son" John said drawing the curtains open. The older winchester brother groaned slightly and buried his face deeper in his pillow.

"Dean !" John barked "Get your lazy ass out of bed and wake your brother would ya."

"Yes sir." Dean answered in a sleepy voice

He got out of one of those queen size bed he was so used to sleep in, rubbed his eyes and took a look at his surroundings. His father was cleaning the weapons on the table next to the door on his left, while his baby brother was sound asleep in the other bed of the room on his right. He grabbed his favorite Metallica t-shirt in his duffel bag and a pair of one of John's old jeans and got dressed.

Then, he made his way to his brother's bed and started thinking about how he could wake Sam up. He though about throwing a glass of water to his face, but then he remembered that they had a hunt that day which meant that they needed his brother focused on the job and not pissed at him, so he dropped his idea. Instead he figured that a chick-flick wake up was, as much as he hated it, a better choice for today anyway.

He sat slowly on Sam's bed and started to brush his baby brother's hair with his hand. Sam leaned at his brother's touch and blinked his eyes open.

"Morning Sleeping Beauty." Dean grinned down to Sam.

"Morning Jerk" Sam answered lazily.

John watched from the other end of the room his two boys joke around as they were getting ready for the hunt. He was so found of his sons, he admired their innocence. He only wish they could have had the kind of apple-pie childhood he had, away from the ugly sons of bitches that go bump in the night. The brothers were everything to each other, and even if they would never admitted it out loud they would die for each other any second.

John snapped out of his thoughts and quickly finished to clean the last guns.

"Alright boys, I'll go check us out. You two get the bags and your asses in the car. Be ready to hit the road in three." John ordered his sons.

"Yes sir !" the brothers answered at the same time. John threw the Impala's keys to Dean before exiting the room.

It took the boys no more than two minutes to get the car ready. Dean sat at the front of the Impala and Sam at the back. The younger brother's legs were almost too big for him to fit in the back. Dean took the cassette tape box and ran his fingers through the cassettes. After a few seconds of research a satisfied sound came out of his mouth.

"Yahtzee ! AC/DC baby !" He pushed the cassette tape and turned up the volume. The sound of _Thunderstruck_ started roaring in the car.

"Could you turn that down ? Or I'm pretty sure my ears are gonna start bleeding." Sam pleaded his brother.

"Sure thing Sammy !" The older brother chuckled while turning the volume up. Sam sighed.

"You know you can quit calling me Sammy, I'm sixteen dude !"

"What did ya say ? I can't hear ya, the music's too loud !" Dean chuckled even louder. Sam was going to answer but the sound of John sliding in the car cut him before he could say a word.

"Dean turn that down or I'll turn it off."

The twenty years old boy gritted his teeth and turned his music down. A small grin replaced the angry look on Sam's face.

As the Winchester drove on a lonely road, Sam went through the details on the hunt one last time.

"Okay, so two weeks ago a group of three hikers went missing, some rangers went looking for them about a week ago but didn't come back. All these people went missing in the same part of the forest. I'm pretty sure we're dealing with a wendigo."

"What about a werewolf ?" Dean asked

"Can't be, the disappearances don't match the lunar cycle. Moreover, a werewolf wouldn't bother hiding the bodies, it would just eat their heart and leave." Dean nodded in understanding.

"Ok, so how do we kill the son of a bitch ?"

"You torch it with a flare gun or in our case, a flame-thrower." Dean's eyes sparkled at his brother's words, he'd waited so long to use one of these.

"Awesome ! Where do we find the fucker ?"

"Well, wendigos usually live in dark cold caves in order to keep their food fresh. They only get out to hunt once a year. They are great hunter, so that's bad for us, they are fast, strong and they can use a human voice when they need to lure their prey. But, they can only copy a voice that they already heard before so if we stay quiet it shouldn't be able to use this ability against us."

"Sam's right, so because we can't use our voices we're all gonna have a whistle."

"So what you speak whistle now ?" Dean added with his usual cocky tone

"No smartass, we're gonna have a code, that you're gonna have to remember if you want to be able to understand what we want to tell you." John said with a deadly serious look on his face that automatically wiped out the older brother's grin off his mouth.

"The code's pretty simple : if you locate the cave, whistle once. If you find the wendigo, whistle twice and if you are hurt or need help just whistle as long as you can." Sam explained.

"Got it." Dean assured his brother and father.

Sam then took the whistles out of his pocket and gave them to the rest of the family.

"Ok that should be it." Dean announced watching the road map. "The searching area is here." He said pointing at an area of the map circled in red. "So if we park the car here, we should only be a mile or two from our goal." The older brother concluded.

"Okay but what about the river between us and the searching area ?" Sam questioned.

"As far as I can tell there are at least three bridges to cross it safely. So it shouldn't be a problem or a danger. But if you really don't want to have to cross the river we can still drive around it and park the car on the other side but it would mean the journey on foot would be at least nine, maybe ten miles longer." Dean explained.

"Yeah, that's not an option. We have to get this hunt done by tonight, and I don't want to be out there with these creatures after sun down. So we'll cross the river by foot." John decided.

"Alright, let's get moving then." Sam declared with a semi-enthusiastic tone.

The walk from the car to the bridge was done in complete silence, not a word coming out of any of the three boys mouth. Only the sound of the leaves brushing against each other as the wind came and left, and the occasional music from the birds all around came troubled the dead silence of the forest.

John, who was walking first, stopped when he finally saw the river. He pointed his finger right in front of him towards the wooden bridge a few meters away from them. He waved to his sons to follow him as he started walking towards the bridge. Sam and Dean quickly caught up with their father.

They walked until they were all standing at the beginning of the bridge. It was made of moldy wood and some old worn rope. It actually looked like it would break under the weight of something as light as a feather. The brothers looked at each other with a worried gaze on their face before looking up at John.

"Dad, this bridge is going to break as soon as we walk on it." Sam said with a hint fear in his voice.

"It's the only way Sam. If we go looking for the next bridge we'll never make it out of these woods before sun down."

"Dad's right Sam, we don't have enough time to go to the next bridge, which by the way, might be as dangerous as this one." Dean added with an encouraging smile

"Yeah I know... But it still feels like one of the worst ideas we've ever had." Sam let out a sight.

"So who wants to go first ?" he said with a sarcastic tone.

"I'll go." said Dean before taking a step forward "I'll make sure the bridge is secure without damaging it. Then you can go and dad'll go last." John nodded in agreement. "Sounds good to me."

"Okay... but if anything goes wrong to run back to us, you're not going anywhere without us." Sam said firmly.

"Don't worry squirt I'd never leave your sorry ass alone." His big brother reassured him with a slight punch against his shoulder. Dean then returned his gaze to the bridge. He took a deep breath before slowly stepping on the first plank of wood. He was starting to regret volunteering to go first. Each plank squeaked like crazy every time he took a step forward. A few steps after the middle of the bridge the wood gave away under his foot.

"Son of a bitch !" Dean cursed.

"You okay Dean ?" Sam yelled at his brother.

"Yea' I'm fine don't worry !" The older brother yelled back before jumping on the next plank. The end of his dangerous crossing went pretty smoothly. Once he was standing safely on the opposite shore of the river Dean waved his hand to his brother.

"It's okay Sam you can cross now !"

"Go ahead Sam but be careful." John advised Sam

"Of course Dad, be careful too." the youngest said with a tiny smile.

Sam hissed every time the wood squeaked under his feet and tensed at each swing. He was so focused on his feet that he didn't notice that the rope was starting to relax in his hand. It's only when the right hand rope gave away that he lifted his eyes from his feet. He saw the terrified look on his brother's face.

"SAM ! RUN !" Dean yelled on top of his lungs. Sam took a few seconds to react, then he started running as fast as he could but his lack of reactivity gave enough time to the other ropes to give out too. Soon the bridge collapsed in the swirling rapids of the river, taking with it the youngest winchester.

TBC


End file.
